We have previously developed an electronic game which allows fixed odds betting on the outcome of the game.
The game is a race and players can bet on the participants in the race. The race is typically a simulated horse race and players bet on the simulated horses. To provide a variety of different bets, different probabilities of winning are allocated to horses. A random number generator is used to determine the outcome. Typically, the random number generator produces a value between zero and one, and portions of the range (eg. 0.01-0.20, 0.21-0.35, etc) are assigned to different horses. Thus, the fixed odds which are offered to players of the game are based on the relative chances of electronic horses winning the electronic horse race. To determine the winning horse, the random number generator is run and the value is compared to the allocated portions of the range to determine which horse will win.
In order to allow betting on the second and third placed horses, the game engine is configured to determine second and third positions. To do so, the game engine is configured to re-adjust the portions of the range of possible random number generator values which are allocated to individual horses after each horse is drawn because the horse that filled the previous place should not be selected again. This involves proportionately redistributing the portions of selected horses to the remaining horses.
Once the results have been determined, the game engine simulates an electronic horse race in which the horses determined using the random number generator to finish in first, second and third positions finish in this order in a simulated race conducted over, for example, 30 seconds.
While this game has proved popular and effective in its current form, we have subsequently realised that the mechanism which is used to determine the result, (ie, the random number generator), is either not an allowable mechanism in some jurisdictions or causes the game to be subject to a more complicated (and hence, costly) regulatory scheme.
At the same time, we have determined that such jurisdictions often have less strict regulation of games which use mechanical ball draw machines as these games are considered to be less susceptible to tampering. Hitherto, mechanical ball draw machines have been used to draw numbers from a set of numbers where all the numbers are different in order to determine a result of a game where the result is solely related to the numbers which are drawn.
The present invention utilises a novelly configured mechanical ball draw device in order to allow fixed odds betting on an electronic game.